After reading the article about an imaginary first grader named Dora I felt strange. Although I enjoyed reading about the various ways Dora’s teacher helped Dora learn about syntax and punctuation, I did not fully accept Dora as a legitimate first grader. This is to say that Dora seemed more imaginary and less realistic as a student, which in turn affects my overall reception of her progress as a student.
One of the major things about Dora that put me off was the way she punctuated sentences. I understand, because of our discussion, that Dora reverted back to random placement of end-marks in her writing. What I do not understand is how her teacher solved this problem. The thing that bothered me most about this text was that the teacher seemed to posses some magical power over her students, especially Dora. In various blogs I have noticed people discussing how idealistic Dora and the other students were; they sat still, asked related questions, effectively peer reviewed each other’s writings. But is this what a normal first grade classroom looks like?
I would argue that Dora’s story is full of hope and success and lacking realistic despair and failure. This is not to say that all students are lacking hope or unable to succeed. I am simply arguing that Dora, as an imaginary student, lacks authenticity as an actual human/first grader. I would definitely have understood the learning process in regard to punctuation and syntax if I could have read about real, needy, students in the first grade. Our class’s discussion reinforces this point, as many of the responses iterated that Dora was not a realistic first grader.
ALTHOUGH, MANY CHILDREN DO NOT SHOW SIGNS OF CHICKEN POX AS WELL.
love your use of a semicolon, Seth.
ReplyDeleteBut your example of an AAAWWUBBIS clause is off. Take the comma out after "Although," and then add an independent clause.
As is, you're using "although" as if it were "however." It ain't.